


and all those years go floating by --

by hedonistic_opportunist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, Post Reichenbach, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedonistic_opportunist/pseuds/hedonistic_opportunist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade first sets eyes on Sherlock on a damp, rainy April morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and all those years go floating by --

***  
Lestrade first sets eyes on Sherlock on a damp, rainy April morning. He’s brought in by a frowning Donovan, black lines around her eyes, and Lestrade merely sighs. He knows what she's going through.

Another late night. Coffee really doesn’t help much, either.

His marriage is falling apart, and he finds himself itching for a smoke. But he can’t: his shift ain’t over yet.

Most people would describe the 'newcomer' as ‘dashing’ and all ‘Heathcliff’-like, but all Lestrade sees is a young man paler than Death itself, and higher than any recent junkie he’s had the honour of looking after. He sighs again, and tells Donovan to drop the young man into his office cause he’s most likely – if one goes by the expensive material of his suit – one of those rich, bored kids whose Daddy is going to cause lots of trouble if one puts him behind bars.

Lestrade doesn’t want to kiss the soles of anyone’s shoes, but he’s learnt -- through painful experience -- how it’s better not to play by the rules of the game sometimes.

It’s only when Sherlock, after a twenty minute stay in his office, manages to solve a case he’s been driving himself crazy about for days that Lestrade realises this isn’t just another of those spoilt, pampered brats.

Time to make a choice, and Lestrade does.

***  
Sherlock is bloody brilliant, and Lestrade knows it.

Where his boys would need days to find clues – if any – it just takes Sherlock a second, his mouth a wide ‘o’ as the wheels of his head begin visibly turning, and he makes a deduction that Lestrade can’t deny is beyond amazing. Not that he ever says it aloud. Sherlock doesn't seem to need any compliments. He never asks for them, so Lestrade never gives them.

Nor does Sherlock seem to need anything else either: not recognition or money even, and so Lestrade never provides.

Lestrade thinks he should feel guilty for using Sherlock like that, but Sherlock never complains, and seems well-off enough if the designer coat he’s wearing is any evidence enough.

Still, Lestrade wishes he could do something to show his appreciation, sometimes. It’s just not right, using Sherlock like this, taking advantage of his fantastic mind to further his own career at the Yard (even if his mind, rightfully so, tells him that his climbing up the ladder is not just because of Sherlock, but because he’s a good detective in his own right.)

But then, what can you give a man who doesn’t seem to care for anything but cases?

***  
Sherlock, Lestrade has accepted, is both extraordinary and very predictable: he hates Anderson, Donovan hates him, and he usually shows off. A lot.

He's best dealt with when you just give in (nothing but a petulant child.)

And yet, one day, Sherlock manages to baffle Lestrade by bringing an ordinary-looking, short chap with him that he says is ‘with him’. Lestrade frowns for a blink of a second because, in the past five years, he can’t remember Sherlock having ever mentioned any friends, yet alone anyone he considered good enough to work with him. And this chap – Lestrade thinks – looks tired, weary, even lost … Nothing like Sherlock who oozes confidence and assurance wherever he struts in.

He really doesn't get it.

But Lestrade has learnt not to question anything Sherlock does, so he lets the man he later learns is John Watson tag along (possibly just another childish whim of Sherlock's.)

It’s only later, much later, that Lestrade comes to appreciate John Watson for the man he is.

***  
John Watson, Lestrade thinks, is the key to Sherlock's heart.

In the two months that John has been staying at Sherlock’s side, Lestrade finds himself learning so much more about Sherlock than he ever did on his own.

Namely that Sherlock has no idea about some things (like the solar system, for Christ’s sake!) and that, in spite of his showing off and being an annoying dick in general, he does care .

The way he looks at John, the way he reacts to him … Lestrade knows it’s not faked, but real, so very real, and a part of him can’t help but feel jealous at that because John, despite being so ordinary and seemingly dull, has managed to chip away at Sherlock’s defences. A feat no one has managed before.

It's a mystery. John is the very opposite of brilliant.

And yet, Lestrade realises that maybe it’s that: maybe it’s John just being plain John that makes Sherlock let loose around him so – it’s his non-pretentiousness, the fact that he’s able to take on Sherlock eye-to-eye without compromising himself.

It’s John’s unquestioning loyalty that earns Sherlock’s trust. It's the fact that he believes, even when no one else seems to do so.

Lestrade wishes he had that much faith in Sherlock.

***  
And he learns he does, but only when it’s too late, only when Sherlock has already jumped off the building, and he sees a broken John in the remnants of what used to be his and Sherlock’s apartment.

Nothing but boxes. Dust gathering everywhere. And the silence, so much silence.

Lestrade never realised how much he loved Sherlock’s energy until now. Didn't realise how much he'd miss it.

But, more than that, he never realised just how much he wishes he could have known Sherlock.

Because, though John is quiet, and his eyes downcast, he can see the pain – can see the caring, the unbroken, unadulterated grief coming from John that isn’t just sadness over having lost a brilliant consulting detective, but a person that, he realises now, lingered somewhere there underneath the fantastic deductions and fast speech.

A person only John Watson really had been given access to.

Lestrade wants to ask John what Sherlock was like, whether he drank coffee in the morning, liked watching 'Eastenders' or played Cluedo.

But he doesn’t. Not his position.

He’s lost his chance.

And now, it’s time to move on.

Only that Lestrade doesn't.

***


End file.
